Some see AI music as theft. Others see it as trash. But a new wave of creators is showing what’s possible when the tech is used with intention. Credit is tracked, engines are named, and even flawed outputs are part of the art.
Meet Ryan Groves, Co-Founder and CTO of Infinite Album and a Director of the AI Song Contest. A veteran of the generative AI space, he’s navigating the creative and ethical minefields others would rather ignore.
AI authors: "The engine is always cut into the royalty system," says Groves. "We track contributions on an instrument-by-instrument level to see what each artist contributed. But we also treat our engine as one of the authors." Rather than retrofitting old licensing schemes, the system recognizes both human and machine authorship. It treats the AI not as a black box but as a credited contributor.
Slop to bop: That philosophy shapes his work with the AI Song Contest, a competition that highlights sophisticated human-AI collaboration and explicitly bars any platform entangled in training data lawsuits.
Groves points to one winning entry as proof that AI's value isn't just in its perfection. “Last year, our winning team found a bias against South American music in a lot of these models—it just couldn't generate anything viable,” Groves shares. “So they took all of this slop that was being generated and collaged it together to create an incredible South American anthem. There are fascinating ways you can explore this tech, even when you’re doing it ethically.”
Game on: Groves focuses on what AI can do that humans simply can't. “You can't have a band sit next to you, watch you play a game, and compose appropriate music as you’re playing,” he says. That real-time responsiveness turns generative AI into a new distribution model, one that opens the gated world of gaming to working artists.
Not quite harmony: His commitment to ethical AI didn’t shield him from backlash. After a product launch, Groves faced intense criticism not for the technology itself, but for failing to clearly communicate its values. “For people who really appreciate artists, AI is essentially an enemy,” he says. “It was pretty eye-opening, the amount of hate that can be had even when you're one of the operators who is doing this ethically.” The lesson is that in a space this charged, perception can hit harder than practice.
Beginner's unluck: His final warning isn't about ethics. It's about erosion. “For amateurs, I think it's devastating. All you see is a competitor who can do it faster and better than you,” he says. “If you rely on these tools as a crutch, you start losing your skills.” For Groves, the real danger is what gets lost when beginners skip the hard parts. “I think it’s going to be really challenging for beginners to learn trades in this era, and I just hope we can maintain our ability to get really good at things, especially when it comes to art.”